Some 9,000 Nigerians have fallen victims to cyber attacks between last year and now.
The victims were mainly lovers of entertainment and avid followers of the popular American organised music Awards, 'The Grammy.'
Their latest trick is to hide under your favourite celebrities, songs and movies and a slight click to download anything concerning them, exposes you to cyber attack.
The victims were made to believe that popular nominees of the award, including Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift and Post Malone , sent them a link, songs or other interesting information.
At the click of such links, they immediately experienced malware attack.
Kaspersky, protection solution provider, revealed that the malware used the name of Grammy Award winner Ariana Grande and several other top stars to trick Nigerians into downloading songs and behind those famous songs were embedded malicious files.
Kaspersky said it found 30,982 malicious files that used the names of artistes or their tracks in order to spread malware, using the names of artistes and songs nominated for Grammy 2020 award.
It detected a 39 percent rise in attacks through attempts to download or run malicious files under the guise of nominees' work in 2019, compared to 2018.
Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, and Post Malone were attackers' favourites, with these nominees' names used most often in 2019 as a disguise for malware.
The company said: "Music has universal appeal; it is not just entertainment, but a form of therapy and education, as well as providing an atmosphere and message platform. Its popularity and widespread availability is the reason why, even in the age of streaming services, music is not free from malicious activity. Criminals use popular artistes' names to spread malware hidden in music tracks or video clips.
"In light of the biggest music awards of the year, to show the extent of the problem, Kaspersky researchers analysed Grammy 2020 nominated artistes' names and song titles for malware.
As a result, Kaspersky found 30,982 malicious files that used the names of artistes or their tracks in order to spread malware, with 41,096 Kaspersky product users having encountered them.
